'Shraddha Was Thrashed, Locked At Home While Aftab Had Another Affair': Friend Recalls 2020 Incident

A friend of Shraddha Walkar has said the 26-year-old call centre worker's partner, Aftab Poonawalla, used to thrash her regularly. Aftab on May 18 killed Shraddha and chopped her body into 35 pieces.

Shraddha Walkar had to be hospitalised in 2020 after her live-partner Aftab Poonawalla thrashed her.

Shraddha Walkar, a 26-year-old call centre worker who was murdered by her live-in partner Aftab Poonawalla on May 18, lived in fear for her life. However, she refused to have Aftab detained or arrested by the police. She was rescued once by her friends in 2020 after Aftab severely thrashed her.

Shraddha’s friend Rahul Rai told news agency ANI that when the police intervened in 2020, she brushed off the incidents of physical abuse as “normal”.

“In 2020, we helped her register a complaint after she reached out to us for help, saying Aftab had beat her up. We took her home. The next day when we went to the police station with her, she said she was scared that Aftab would kill her as had already tried to murder her before. She mentioned that he often thrashed her. But when the police suggested detaining Aftab for interrogation, she said such things happen in a relationship,” Rai said.

 

In 2020 we all helped her in filing FIR after she reached out to us for help saying Aftab beats her...we took her home. The police officer suggested detaining Aftab for interrogation but she said such things happen in a relationship: Rahul Rai, Shraddha's Friend pic.twitter.com/VVdfWUF0t2

— ANI (@ANI) November 18, 2022

Rai further said that Aftab used to lock her up at home and had other affairs. Aftab was also addicted to drugs, he said.

According to news website NDTV, the physical abuse became so severe that she had to be hospitalised in December 2020. A doctor that NDTV spoke to said that she had been admitted with severe back pain, trauma, and “internal injuries”, indicative of a fall at home or violence.

Shivprasad Shinde, the doctor who treated Shraddha at Ozone Multispeciality Hospital, told the news website: “She had spondylosis and trauma but there was no external injury.”

Shraddha met Aftab on the dating app, Bumble, three years ago but the relation wasn't a happy one. The couple used to have frequent arguments over financial matters. Police suspect the couple fought over one such matter that resulted in Aftab killing Shraddha.

After strangling Shraddha on May 18, Aftab chopped her body into 35 pieces, which he kept in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in South Delhi's Mehrauli, before dumping them across the city over several days past midnight.

Now, the Delhi Police has sent teams to locations that the couple visited in the past few months. Statements of people from the locations are also being recorded.